Just ignore the high starting price and Windows' scaling issues.

Intel's Haswell CPUs have been good to Ultrabook makers. Use them, and you get an essentially "free" battery life boost without sacrificing any performance. Most of the PC OEMs—Acer, Dell, Apple, and Lenovo among them—have simply dropped Haswell processors into lightly modified versions of their Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks and called it a day.

Now Toshiba is joining the party with a new, Haswell-toting version of its high-resolution Kirabook. We liked last year's version, but it was much more expensive than other comparable Ultrabooks, despite being late to the Ivy Bridge party. We've got the new version in our hands, and we can say that the Kirabook's second go-round comes much closer to succeeding than the first.

Body, build quality, and screen

Enlarge/ From the outside, the new Kirabook is the same as the old one. This isn't a bad thing.

Andrew Cunningham

Specs at a glance: Toshiba Kirabook (Haswell)

Screen

2560×1440 at 13.3" (221 ppi)

OS

Windows 8 Pro 64-bit

CPU

1.8GHz Intel Core i7-4500U (Turbo up to 3.GHz)

RAM

8GB 1600MHz DDR3 (non-upgradeable)

GPU

Intel HD Graphics 4400 (integrated)

HDD

256GB solid-state drive

Networking

Dual-band 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0

Ports

3x USB 3.0, HDMI, card reader, headphones

Size

12.44" × 8.15" × 0.7" (315.98 × 207.01 × 17.78mm)

Weight

2.97 lbs (1.35kg)

Battery

3380 mAh

Warranty

2 years

Starting price

$1,499.99

Price as reviewed

$1,699.99

Other perks

Webcam, backlit keyboard

Toshiba has changed basically nothing about the Kirabook's appearance, build quality, or port layout—you wouldn't be able to tell the new one from the old one if they were sitting next to each other. The lid and palm rest area are still a brushed "magnesium alloy," while the underside is a smooth version of the same material that looks and feels a little more like plastic. The lid flexes and bends a bit under pressure, but overall it's a nice-looking laptop that holds together well.

The laptop's hinge is sturdy, and it holds the screen firmly in place even if you're poking at it with your finger. You will, however, need two hands to comfortably open the laptop—try to lift the lid with one hand and the bottom will follow it. All of the laptop's ports are lined up on the left and right edges of the laptop: there's an HDMI port and two USB 3.0 ports on the left side, and an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and another USB 3.0 port on the right.

Compared to other Ultrabooks with a 13.3-inch screen, the Kirabook remains a little thicker (0.7 inches, compared to 0.5 for the Aspire S7) but has a smaller footprint overall. The display's bezels are narrower than they are in other touchscreen Ultrabooks, and Toshiba was able to make the entire laptop smaller as a result. The Kirabook looks and feels a bit more like a 12-inch laptop than a 13-inch one.

Enlarge/ The Kirabook (top) feels a little thicker than other Ultrabooks, but it has a smaller footprint.

Andrew Cunningham

The screen itself is still a nice looking 2560×1440 panel with bright colors and good viewing angles—it's not quite as high-resolution as the 3200×1800 display on Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro, but there's nothing to complain about here. All Kirabook models now include a 10-point touchscreen, eliminating the entry-level non-touch version from last year. The screen includes no active digitizer for use with styluses or other pens, but this is arguably less important on a laptop than it is on a convertible or tablet.

Two small complaints about the screen: first, there's the extremely reflective layer of glass over the top of it, which is pretty quick to show smudges. This is par for the course for almost any touch-enabled computer, though. Next, it doesn't get quite as bright as other screens we've seen. This won't be a problem indoors, though it might make the screen more difficult to see outdoors.

Enlarge/ Toshiba's keyboard is nice to type on once you get used to the rectangular keys.

Andrew Cunningham

Finally, the most important thing for any good laptop: the keyboard and trackpad. Toshiba still uses keys that are just a little shorter than most, meaning most of the keys are sort-of-rectangular in size than perfectly square. Once you adjust to the spacing, the Kirabook is easy to type on, and the keys feature pretty good travel (for a chiclet keyboard) and a nice, even backlight. The Synaptics touchpad is about as good as Windows laptops get—it's reasonably accurate. We had no issues with palm rejection, and the Windows 8 touchpad gestures and other functions, like two-finger scrolling, worked as expected. It does what it needs to do.

Software: Bundled stuff, scaling issues

The Kirabook includes a relatively bloatware-free installation of Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.1 Pro (on top of which we've installed the upcoming Windows 8.1 Update from Microsoft's developer site). It includes a smattering of Toshiba-added Live Tiles, an easily removed evaluation of Norton Internet Security, the standard Microsoft Office demo, and a smattering of Toshiba support applications. These are harmless but mostly redundant—the best of them is probably the Toshiba Display Utility, and even that is just another way to adjust Windows' built-in scaling settings.

As in the previous model, the most useful utilities here are the pre-installed versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and Premiere Elements 11, which are basic but useful photo and video editing applications. These applications also demonstrate the problems you'll run into using Windows desktop applications with high-density displays, a problem we also touched upon in our original Kirabook review, the Yoga 2 Pro review, and other places besides. Look what happens when you open these fully updated, pre-installed applications on a screen set to 150 percent scaling:

Enlarge/ Well, this isn't promising. Premiere respects the scaling settings and just looks blurry, while Photoshop (left) ignores it entirely and just shows up tiny.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ Click through, and both apps ignore Windows' scaling settings. UI elements are probably too small to use if your eyesight is poor.

Andrew Cunningham

The story is the same as always: Stick to first-party Microsoft applications and Modern apps installed through the Windows store, and things mostly look great on the Kirabook's screen. Stray from that path, and things get much messier.

Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

Kinda unfair to lump Apple in with all those other OEMs as "just dropping in haswell". On the hardware side that may be true, but haswell laptops get their improved battery life through a combination of the hardware and software; intel and Microsoft worked together on Windows, and intel worked with Apple for OSX in the same manner.

Why is it that only Apple seems to put intel chips with their superior graphics solutions in Laptops. Moving up from an intel HD 4400 to a 5000 or better yet crystal well powered version would make a huge difference when it comes to graphics related tasks.

I believe examples like Photoshop are more of application's issue rather than Windows. IIRC, Lightroom on the other hand handles high DPI very well in Windows. Adobe and others just need to update some of their Windows applications like they did for Retina Macs.

Why is it that only Apple seems to put intel chips with their superior graphics solutions in Laptops. Moving up from an intel HD 4400 to a 5000 or better yet crystal well powered version would make a huge difference when it comes to graphics related tasks.

The PC industry is a cutthroat one. The iris gpu-equipped cpus are much more expensive, meaning the laptop would be much pricier.Now, you or I would be happy to pay more to get the more powerful GPUs (a laptop like the lenovo x230 with the iris equipped i5 4288u is my dream machine). however, the typical consumer has zero understanding of gpus, shops exclusively by dollar signs and brand name, and just checks email and facebook, and as such would not benefit from the increased power. (given the virus infested cesspools that are brought to me to fix, most people wouldnt be able to tell the machine was faster anyway) These kind of people make up the majority of buyers, and are the only reason so many craptastic laptops still exist in large numbers, like $300 hp laptops you see at walmart.

I can't speak for other OEMs, but Apple will do a battery swap. You can take it into the Genius Bar, or you can ship your notebook to them and they will perform the battery swap. I have one of the first unibody MBPs with the non-user replaceable battery. It's been a non-issue. I had the battery swapped out and it wasn't a huge deal and it took about twenty minutes. What you gain is structural rigidity (no large battery door), and more room for a larger battery for longer runtime. In an ultra book, where space is at a premium, a user accessible battery compartment doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think the main issues is one of the weaknesses of the Windows ecosystem - a lot of legacy apps that aren't always updated in a timely manner. Apple has been fairly quick and able to ditch older APIs and platforms and get developers on board. The number of apps that are optimized for the HiDPI displays is growing. MS needs to prod their developers to move forward and keep their apps up-to-date.

Why is it that only Apple seems to put intel chips with their superior graphics solutions in Laptops. Moving up from an intel HD 4400 to a 5000 or better yet crystal well powered version would make a huge difference when it comes to graphics related tasks.

The PC industry is a cutthroat one. The iris gpu-equipped cpus are much more expensive, meaning the laptop would be much pricier.Now, you or I would be happy to pay more to get the more powerful GPUs (a laptop like the lenovo x230 with the iris equipped i5 4288u is my dream machine). however, the typical consumer has zero understanding of gpus, shops exclusively by dollar signs and brand name, and just checks email and facebook, and as such would not benefit from the increased power. (given the virus infested cesspools that are brought to me to fix, most people wouldnt be able to tell the machine was faster anyway) These kind of people make up the majority of buyers, and are the only reason so many craptastic laptops still exist in large numbers, like $300 hp laptops you see at walmart.

I can't speak for other OEMs, but Apple will do a battery swap. You can take it into the Genius Bar, or you can ship your notebook to them and they will perform the battery swap. I have one of the first unibody MBPs with the non-user replaceable battery. It's been a non-issue. I had the battery swapped out and it wasn't a huge deal and it took about twenty minutes. What you gain is structural rigidity (no large battery door), and more room for a larger battery for longer runtime. In an ultra book, where space is at a premium, a user accessible battery compartment doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think the main issues is one of the weaknesses of the Windows ecosystem - a lot of legacy apps that aren't always updated in a timely manner. Apple has been fairly quick and able to ditch older APIs and platforms and get developers on board. The number of apps that are optimized for the HiDPI displays is growing. MS needs to prod their developers to move forward and keep their apps up-to-date.

For what it's worth, the rMBPs have glued batteries, and a replacement involves the upper casing (including the trackpad and keyboard I think) - which is also why it costs more than before. I believe the Air still uses screws for the battery though.

Reviewers today are so used to planned obsolescence the review doesn't even point out your expensive new laptop lasts only as long as the battery glued inside.

I was recently on the market for a new notebook and ended up going with a Thinkpad T440p with discrete nvidia graphics, i7-4700MQ, and the 1080p IPS display option. Out of the box I upgraded it to 16GB DDR3L and added my own SSD and installed Windows 7 Pro. It's thicker and heavier than an ultrabook, but unlike an ultrabook it has a user replaceable battery, optical drive, and the RAM, wifi card, and SSD/HDD are user upgrade-able. If I'm going to spend $1000+ on a notebook, I'm not buying something that's built like a cheap throwaway with everything glued or soldered on that's destined for the trash heap in two years when something on it invariably fails. Ultrabooks and the more recent Macs sacrifice everything for the sake of thinness. And honestly I just don't care that much about my notebook being thin. I'd rather have something thicker that's built to last.

I'm actually kind of surprised with the Intel 4400 graphics in these and the other high end ultrabooks. I myself purchased a Retina Macbook Pro, and while I like some of the ultrabooks out there, I wanted to give OSX a shot. At the time I figured I was paying a smidge of apple tax, but it didn't bother me, but after looking at the options out there I do personally think that the rumored apple tax that everyone loves to talk about doesn't actually exist. At least not on the 13" Retina Macbook Pro. All in all I'm very happy that I have the intel 5100 integrated graphics as it allows me to play things like starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 quite smooth at a reasonable resolution (1280x800) and settings (medium-ish). After using it for 4 months I actually find that I like OSX more than windows as well.

I ended up installing windows 7 on it in bootcamp just to see what it was like and the scaling issues turned me off big time. Not happy with windows on any high resolution display, but to be honest I don't own windows 8 so I can't be completely sure if they've remedied all of the problems (but from this review it still looks like there are some scaling issues). I haven't had any of the same scaling issues in OSX, most unoptimized apps look pretty much like they would on a non HD display, and it's not too jarring for the most part, especially when almost everything I use for it supports "retina" displays.

For the money, I kind of expected a bit more I suppose? For the same money I bought an apple product, but it has a faster processor and better graphics which surprises me. I guess there's the touch screen factor, but for such a beautiful display the last thing I want to do to it is get smudges on it. Maybe apple has other products with a higher "apple tax" on them, but when people tell me that I got ripped off by going with apple, but I can't help but disagree.

Re windows handling of high resolution.I have a Lenovo Yoga 2 which comes with a 3200x1800 screen.The screen is physically beautiful - but windows just can't handle it.it's not just non-native apps that suffer. the windows desktop itself ("old style" i.e. start menu) is unusable. same goes for the Kirabook.Going for non-native resolutions just looks awful. Instead I opted for 1600x900 (i.e. 2x scaling on both axes) which still looks great.

It's just useless to put a screen with unusable resolutions. It's like the marketing folks said "we need high resolution to sell this baby" and the engineers said "whatever."

Why is it that only Apple seems to put intel chips with their superior graphics solutions in Laptops. Moving up from an intel HD 4400 to a 5000 or better yet crystal well powered version would make a huge difference when it comes to graphics related tasks.

The PC industry is a cutthroat one. The iris gpu-equipped cpus are much more expensive, meaning the laptop would be much pricier.Now, you or I would be happy to pay more to get the more powerful GPUs (a laptop like the lenovo x230 with the iris equipped i5 4288u is my dream machine). however, the typical consumer has zero understanding of gpus, shops exclusively by dollar signs and brand name, and just checks email and facebook, and as such would not benefit from the increased power. (given the virus infested cesspools that are brought to me to fix, most people wouldnt be able to tell the machine was faster anyway) These kind of people make up the majority of buyers, and are the only reason so many craptastic laptops still exist in large numbers, like $300 hp laptops you see at walmart.

Yes, but people buying $1500 laptops probably know what they buy.

Yes, but people buying $1500 laptops are a small minority compared to the number of people buying cheap machines. As such, only boutique manufacturers, whom usually sell fewer, higher priced machines, even bother with the special parts. That's why clevo and apple have laptops with the iris pro gpu, but the likes of HP, dell, asus, acer group, and lenovo havent touched the iris chips.

Why is it that only Apple seems to put intel chips with their superior graphics solutions in Laptops. Moving up from an intel HD 4400 to a 5000 or better yet crystal well powered version would make a huge difference when it comes to graphics related tasks.

The PC industry is a cutthroat one. The iris gpu-equipped cpus are much more expensive, meaning the laptop would be much pricier.Now, you or I would be happy to pay more to get the more powerful GPUs (a laptop like the lenovo x230 with the iris equipped i5 4288u is my dream machine). however, the typical consumer has zero understanding of gpus, shops exclusively by dollar signs and brand name, and just checks email and facebook, and as such would not benefit from the increased power. (given the virus infested cesspools that are brought to me to fix, most people wouldnt be able to tell the machine was faster anyway) These kind of people make up the majority of buyers, and are the only reason so many craptastic laptops still exist in large numbers, like $300 hp laptops you see at walmart.

Yes, but people buying $1500 laptops probably know what they buy.

I've no idea why this is upvoted at all. If you've ever tried to give laptop buying advice to people then you know that 90% don't.

Reviewers today are so used to planned obsolescence the review doesn't even point out your expensive new laptop lasts only as long as the battery glued inside.

I was recently on the market for a new notebook and ended up going with a Thinkpad T440p with discrete nvidia graphics, i7-4700MQ, and the 1080p IPS display option. Out of the box I upgraded it to 16GB DDR3L and added my own SSD and installed Windows 7 Pro. It's thicker and heavier than an ultrabook, but unlike an ultrabook it has a user replaceable battery, optical drive, and the RAM, wifi card, and SSD/HDD are user upgrade-able. If I'm going to spend $1000+ on a notebook, I'm not buying something that's built like a cheap throwaway with everything glued or soldered on that's destined for the trash heap in two years when something on it invariably fails. Ultrabooks and the more recent Macs sacrifice everything for the sake of thinness. And honestly I just don't care that much about my notebook being thin. I'd rather have something thicker that's built to last.

I think you're being a bit disingenuous with regards to Macs. Apple generally provides very good support for years after you purchased your machine. So when something does fail, you *can* get it fixed and not just throw it away. Now, warranted, this can be pricey, but the sealed battery in Macs last for years and generally display superior power characteristics to most generic PCs so it shouldn't be a problem for a long while. AppleCare is also fairly inexpensive for the 3-year plan, especially if you have already purchased a $2000+ machine. The major benefit of having a sealed battery is that they are generally higher capacity. E.g. I regularly see 9-10 hours from my upgraded rMBP 15", which is no slouch of a machine. Yes, in 6 years or so it will be outdated, but at that point, even if it was upgradeable, I would likely have to replace the motherboard (for DDR4, etc) which is a no-go with laptops.

Yet, unless you're pressed for it, why would you buy this when we're just a handful of months away from the thinner, lighter, faster, quieter, and better battery life Broadwell?

Sure there's a cost to waiting, and technology always advances so you could always wait. But I'd call June or July not too long to get a new generation of Intel CPU's and GPU's.

Then by time Broadwell is out, we'll be saying the same thing about the next generation of Intel processors and all the successive improvements. Following this logic, you'll never end up buying a computer if the next gen is always a "few months" away.

How does the screen look if you lower the overall resolution instead of trying to get scaling to work, such as 720p or (50%) or an in-between setting (75%?)?

Bad. Worse than a (native) lower-res screen.

Depends on the laptop. I have a lenovo Yoga 2 and am running it at 1080p (1920x1024) resolution instead of the 3,200x1,800 and everything is still sharp and I have the scaling at 100% so no weird scaling effects. Just TRY running photoshop on a 13" screen and 3200x1800 resolution -- the menus are so small that you have to use a magnifying glass (and I have 20-20 vision). The desktop scaling is a joke because as the article said, most applications don't behave correctly with it.

Reviewers today are so used to planned obsolescence the review doesn't even point out your expensive new laptop lasts only as long as the battery glued inside.

I was recently on the market for a new notebook and ended up going with a Thinkpad T440p with discrete nvidia graphics, i7-4700MQ, and the 1080p IPS display option. Out of the box I upgraded it to 16GB DDR3L and added my own SSD and installed Windows 7 Pro. It's thicker and heavier than an ultrabook, but unlike an ultrabook it has a user replaceable battery, optical drive, and the RAM, wifi card, and SSD/HDD are user upgrade-able. If I'm going to spend $1000+ on a notebook, I'm not buying something that's built like a cheap throwaway with everything glued or soldered on that's destined for the trash heap in two years when something on it invariably fails. Ultrabooks and the more recent Macs sacrifice everything for the sake of thinness. And honestly I just don't care that much about my notebook being thin. I'd rather have something thicker that's built to last.

I think you're being a bit disingenuous with regards to Macs. Apple generally provides very good support for years after you purchased your machine. So when something does fail, you *can* get it fixed and not just throw it away. Now, warranted, this can be pricey, but the sealed battery in Macs last for years and generally display superior power characteristics to most generic PCs so it shouldn't be a problem for a long while. AppleCare is also fairly inexpensive for the 3-year plan, especially if you have already purchased a $2000+ machine. The major benefit of having a sealed battery is that they are generally higher capacity. E.g. I regularly see 9-10 hours from my upgraded rMBP 15", which is no slouch of a machine. Yes, in 6 years or so it will be outdated, but at that point, even if it was upgradeable, I would likely have to replace the motherboard (for DDR4, etc) which is a no-go with laptops.

I have never seen a laptop battery last longer than 2 years, and usually after a year or so they aren't holding much of a charge. AppleCare costs $350 and doesn't cover everything, including replacement batteries. Apple's support isn't even that great in my experience. You typically wait in a long line at an Apple store, and the blue shirts working there often aren't all that helpful or knowledgeable. Many of them are high school kids who just stand around. I think I'd rather just spend ~$100 for a replacement battery and be able to instantly swap out the bad battery for a new one myself when it invariably fails.

I also hate the idea of being at the mercy of a company for repairs. Notebooks can be cheap and easy to repair yourself if you stick to business notebooks with readily available replacement parts. The Thinkpads and Latitudes I've owned in the past have always been cheap and easy to repair when things broke.

Glued and soldered in parts are fine in cheap throwaway $300 netbooks, but I'd never put up with that kind of crap in an expensive machine. It's sad that people are so willing to bend over and take non-repairable, non-upgradeable machines that are designed to be junk in two years at a time when CPUs and GPUs are so powerful there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't get 5+ years out of a laptop. Ultrabooks and current Macs are nothing more than a crass move towards planned obsolescence at a time when PCs are seeing declining sales due to being so powerful and so end user repairable that people rarely need to replace them.

Re windows handling of high resolution.I have a Lenovo Yoga 2 which comes with a 3200x1800 screen.The screen is physically beautiful - but windows just can't handle it.it's not just non-native apps that suffer. the windows desktop itself ("old style" i.e. start menu) is unusable. same goes for the Kirabook.Going for non-native resolutions just looks awful. Instead I opted for 1600x900 (i.e. 2x scaling on both axes) which still looks great.

It's just useless to put a screen with unusable resolutions. It's like the marketing folks said "we need high resolution to sell this baby" and the engineers said "whatever."

I have also a Yoga 2 and am running it at 1080p, 1920x1024 and it looks great but yeah, you just can't run it at native resolution due to scaling issues and running at 100% scaling at 3200x1800 is just insane on a 13" screen...

The screen in this Kirabook has 96% as many subpixels as the Yoga 2 Pro, they just happen to be arranged in standard RGB stripe instead of the Yoga's RG BW PenTile structure. Text should actually look better on the Kirabook, because of ClearType. The Kira most likely also has better color accuracy.

The fact that the author blames Windows for the bad DPI scaling of specific applications makes me question the rest of the article. The author should know that Microsoft included proper DPI scaling as a requirement for Windows 7 application certification. The fact that software vendors are still proving that they still don't know how, or they just don't want, to write good applications shouldn't be a reflection on Microsoft.